A Helping Hand
by GoldRedeemer
Summary: After getting sliced by Ginny in Part 2, Jason stumbles across the home of an old man before killing Edna and her husband, Harold.


Staggering through wet foliage, bushes and trees that resembled hideous scarecrows, Jason continued on through the dark woods. He had no idea where he was heading, just onward, away from the crude shed still inhabited by dead bodies and the severed head of "Mother." Jason didn't want to leave her behind, but he knew that he had to. Maybe soon, he would come back for her. The deep machete wound inflicted upon his left shoulder bled freely, without a care in the world. The pain was unimaginable, but not unbearable for Jason. Pulling the rusty blade out had been a task, and he felt that he would possibly pass out. Somehow, he would have to stanch the bleeding, although he had already lost a sizeable amount of his blood.

Letting his guard down back in the shed had nearly cost him an entire arm. That blonde woman. The one who had tricked him into believing that she was his mother. If Jason ever saw her again, he would leave her corpse unrecognizable. He could find her. If he was able to find that other woman who had killed his mother, he could find the blonde woman as well. Jason looked down at himself. Half of his clothing was already drenched and stained red. He would have to change. The opportunity would come along soon enough. All he had to do was locate an unsuspecting local, preferably male, and steal his clothing after Jason slashed his throat. He looked toward the night sky at a group of parting clouds, revealing the white Hunter's Moon. Staring it at, Jason felt somewhat restored.

Two miles away from a small grocery store owned by a miserable married couple, a small cottage stood in seclusion among the woods. Inside of it, a small elderly man sat in a rocking chair before an old - fashioned television set watching an episode of 77 Sunset Strip. On the floor next to him, sat a bottle of Jim Beam wrapped in a crinkled, greasy paper sack. The man reached down, picking the bottle from the floor to take a swig. The liquor tasted a bit stale, but the man did not care. To him, liquor was liquor, and it still got him drunk, which was all that mattered to him. His liver was already in terrible shape, but he refused to give up drinking. Sometimes, he believed that he had a death wish, but he did not consider himself to be suicidal. Everyone had their time, and he knew that his was not far away.

The old man lifted the bottle to his lips again, accidentally spilling whiskey down his chin after jumping from the sound of glass breaking on the small porch of the cottage. He set the bottle back on the floor, reduced the volume of the tv set, and listened. Upon hearing nothing, he slipped on a pair of loafers, stood up from the rocking chair and approached the front door, opening it. Peering into the darkness, he only saw trees lined alongside of a gravel road. The man stepped out onto the wooden porch, feeling broken glass crinkle beneath his shoes. He realized that the porch lamp had fallen somehow, shattering everywhere. In the morning, he would clean it up, so he turned to go back inside, but then stopped. He squinted in the dark, toward a left corner of the cottage. His glasses were in his shirt pocket, and he removed them, placing them over his gray eyes. There was a shape sitting on the ground in the dark, just sitting there, very still. It appeared to be facing away from the old man, who did not feel the slightest bit of fear. "Hello?"

Jason rested in the dark, at the corner of the cottage. He was intending to regain more of his strength, and he needed to rest for awhile. He heard the man call out to him and turned around after he went back inside of the small cottage. After ten seconds he returned with a small lantern, approaching Jason cautiously. Surprisingly, the man did not recoil in horror at the sight of his deformed face. He had seen much worse in his old days as a surgeon during World War II. However, the old man's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets when he saw the injury that the stranger beared on his left shoulder. Jason did not resist as the man helped him to his feet to lead him inside of the cottage. "Good Gosh! We need to get you patched up, right away, fella!" The man figured that the stranger must have been homeless, or maybe some kind of hermit. Neverthless, he would help him. It was the least that he could do for the poor guy.

Jason sat on a wooden stool in a good size bathroom with his shirt removed as the old man studied the machete wound. He wore sterile gloves, and a surgical apron around his waist. Behind the man, sitting on the edge of a round basin, was a complete medical/ surgical kit, saved from his days as a doctor. He stood close to Jason. "Looks like an easy fix. Say, how did this happen to ya?" The wounded stranger didn't respond. He simply stared at the wall, so the man assumed that he must be slightly or fully retarded. The bloody wound must have been inflicted from a large blade of some kind, the man thought. Maybe a machete or jungle knife some sick bastard used to try and kill the poor sonofagun with, because of his ghastly appearance. The old man would keep the stranger in his cottage until he could figure out what to do next. In the mean time, he set to work on the shoulder.

Jason sat in the kitchen an hour later with sixty four stitches in his left shoulder, covered and wrapped in a large band-aid. He watched as the old man prepared a small meal for him, but Jason did not eat it. The plate was set aside and the man exited the small kitchen. He returned in seconds with a fresh blanket, wrapping it around Jason's torso. The old man led the stranger into a tiny bedroom, coaxing the deformed man to the bed. Jason seemed to understand and laid down on the mattress. "You can sleep here, fella. My home is your home." With that, he smiled and left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. Jason, laying on his back, slowly turned his head toward the crack of light spilling through the half open door.

Sitting back in his rocking chair once again, the old man resumed watching television. He found that he could not concentrate on what was being displayed on the screen. All he could think about was the mysterious and deformed man sleeping in his bedroom. Where had he come from? Who had tried to kill him? Maybe in time, the stranger would try to reveal that in some way. He was probably in some state of shock. Who knew what he had possibly gone through prior to him stumbling upon the old man's cottage. The stranger had been very cooperative so far, allowing his wound to be treated and stitched up. That had been a good sign. He would probably even start speaking, maybe. Only time would tell.

The old man fished his half bottle of whiskey still sitting on the floor where he had originally left it. After taking a huge gulp of it, he began to feel heavily fatigued, and he knew why. Drinking had always played a big part in his life, but gosh, it made him sleep like an infant every time. He wasn't ready to go to sleep at this moment, but in a few hours, the old man would stretch out on the old sofa across from him. He felt good that he had been able to help the stranger and offer him shelter. The surgery he had performed on him wasn't a bad job either. "Still have my touch," he thought to himself.

The chair creaked as it rocked back and forth, which is probably why the man didn't notice the low creaking sound of someone creeping silently along on the floor boards seven feet behind him. His hearing was somewhat bad, but he wasn't deaf. He took another drink from the bottle, not noticing the shadow cast on the floor behind him. The old man prepared to rise to switch the channel of the television, but a sudden, intense pain in his heart caused him to freeze. He was paralyzed, unable to even move a finger. He suddenly understood what was happening, and he completely accepted the fact that God had just called him home. The man believed that he had succumbed from a heart attack as he fell back in the rocking chair. He never realized that a large surgical scalpel protruded through the front left side of his frail upper torso, pierced cleanly through his heart. 


End file.
